How Loki Stole Christmas
by LaylanatorXVII
Summary: The gods, as a whole, possessed simply NO common sense. It is a little known fact that this is the true cause of Baldur's demise. That, and Loki is a troll. My irreverent and borderline cracky rendition of Baldur's death. Don't take it too seriously. Also, reviews would be fantabalaborific. (Yes, that is a word. Okay, not really, but still.) Title is cheesy but better than original


_I know the title's cliche, but the original was worse, trust me. I don't own "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."_

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 _A/N: Hello. So, this is a retelling of Baldur's death. That was a horribly bland sentence, wow. Also, I wrote this before I was aware that I was not the only person on the face of the planet who liked Norse mythology (or that there was a FANFICTION ARCHIVE ABOUT IT, OH MY GOD) so keep that in mind as you read the first couple of paragraphs._

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 _Also, there may be inaccuracies. I mean, besides the blatant anachronisms and fourth-wall breakage and my tendencies to randomly go off on tangents. Hopefully this is entertaining anyway. Don't take it too seriously._

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 _ **WARNINGS:**_ _Baldur bashing. Baldur lovers turn elsewhere. There may be some swearing, I can't remember._

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 _ **DISCLAIMER:**_ _Is this really necessary? Noone really owns the Norse myths. And if there are any legit worshippers out there right now, Stan Lee has pissed them off much worse than anything that I could possibly write. But anyway, I do have a tendency to do anachronistic mentions and break the fourth wall quite a bit, so anything you recognize is not mine. Especially Harry Potter._

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 _Constructive criticism is accepted._

 _Flames will be used to burn my copy of_ the Scarlett Letter _when my English class is done with it. Damn you, Nathaniel Hawthorne, damn you. (Sorry to any Hawthorne fans out there.)_

* * *

I'm willing to bet that yoy've heard of Loki, the god of chaos, fire, and general awesomeness. You've probably also heard of Odin, the creepy guy with one eye who does terrible things to children (Loki's in particular)? You've almost certainly heard of Thor, the walking lightning rod. But have you ever heard of Baldur?

I doubt it. You know why?

Because, while Loki was out there having monster spawn left and right and causing general wickedness...while Thor was out there slaying what he could slay with his awesome hammer...while Odin was out there getting his eye plucked out for infinite knowledge (I mean, Jesus, man, just read a book every once in a while. Geez.) While everyone was being awesome...You know what Baldur was doing?

Sitting at home being pretty.

* * *

I kid you not; Baldur was the god of beauty. He served no purpose really...well, I take that back. He was also the god of peace and harmony, which are some pretty important things, overall...And the fact that he had an extremely overprotective mother be a contributory factor to his general uselessness.

Baldur was the son of Frigga and Odin. (God forbid, a patriarch of the gods actually being FAITHFUL TO HIS WIFE? Why did I not expect that? *cough* Zeus *cough*) And when he was born, everyone was happy and all that, potato chips and cheap beer, badly sung karaoke, the whole shebang. And for a moment, everyone was happy...until the sun went down. (I do not own Shrek; I just couldn't resist.) But seriously, until the sun went down. Cause then Mommy dear just had to go and have a prophetic dream.

Basically, the dream told her that Baldur was going to die. So what does she do? She goes throughout the land extracting an oath from everything not to harm Baldur. People, animals, plants...how do you get a plant to make an oath? "Wave a leaf if you agree?" And if they don't wave she whips out a Weed Whacker? But I digress.

But, as we needed something to further the story and the Vikings had too many mushrooms and one mug too much of ale, she forgot something. (Of course she did.) She forgets mistletoe, because this prickly, highly toxic plant is just uber-harmless in her eyes. But whatever.

* * *

So one year, when Baldur was older, the gods all get together for Yule and stupidly invite- you guessed it: Loki. What the hell where they thinking. (I mean, they couldn't have stopped him from showing up anyway, but still.)

So, since Frigga extracted an oath from everything *cough, cough* not to harm Baldur, the gods had made a sort of sick game including him. You see, they would tie him to this big colored wheel over a river of lava and scream "WHEEL OF TORTURE..." I'm just kidding. Sort of.

You see, apparently Frigga thought it necessary to swear in inanimate objects as well. That must have been tiresome. "Honey, I'm done with the couch, can you bring me the blender?" But, yet again, I digress. Well, evidently this extended to weapons as well. So, after they all had a little too much to drink, they decided, "Let's just chuck our swords, axes, and pointy things in general at our beloved nephew/son/cousin/what-the-hell-ever."

And his wife and mother (who, might I remind you, spent what must have been ages protecting the boy from harm) were just sitting the corner doing their nails or something. And Baldur's dear daddy himself is just having at it! What is WRONG with these people?!

* * *

Now, Loki, being the sly and wily creature he is, is just playing it cool, standing in the shadowy corner watching. Now, after the whole fiasco when he waltzed in to a party and started throwing around insults like they were confetti, you would think that they would have the common sense not to invite him. Especially when he's slinking around in a corner like a predator analyzing a kill...but these were the people throwing weapons at a beloved family member for the simple entertainment of watching them bounce off. I don't think they have much common sense.

* * *

Now, I think all of you have figured out what's going to happen next. Or, at least, you know part of it. Let me give you a hint: Loki isn't about to break into song like it's a Disney movie and start giving out free hugs. But let me explain _why_ this is about to happen.

Loki: the god of mischief, fire, and some say, evil. Baldur: peace, harmony, and basically everything that drives Loki nuts. So Loki bumps him off.

So Loki knows, somehow, that mistletoe is Baldur's kryptonite. He read Frigga's diary or something. Or maybe he was stalking her, I don't know. I'm just gonna go with the diary theory.

So also at the party is Baldur's blind brother, Hodur. (There's supposed to be two little dots over the "o" but I don't know how to do that on this computer...) Hodur, of course, is NOT throwing stuff at his brother, because it runs the risk of hitting one of the Vikings who deserves it more, but is less indestructible. So he's standing there all sad and left out. BUT DO NOT MISTAKE THIS TO MEAN THAT HE POSSESSES COMMON SENSE! BECAUSE HE DOESN'T!

So Loki walks up, stands, sits, whatever, next to the man and starts putting his silver tongue to work. Stuff like, "Sucks that you can't have fun like the others" and "Wish you could join" and stuff like that. Until...

"Hey, I got a great idea! How about you use this bow that I've been carrying around for no reason other than plot convenience! I'll string the bow for you; I'll put in the arrow and help you aim! All you gotta do is let 'er rip!"

And of course Hodur is just like, "Okay!" You would've thought that he would have recognized the voice and went "Wait a minute..."

But nooooo.

So he sits there and lets Loki string the bow, stand him up and aim him towards his beloved brother. And NOONE sees the god of mischief at work; no one was watching the blind guy. For the love of God, Loki could have started beating him with a club and I doubt they would have noticed.

And, of course, the kicker is that for all Hodur knows, Loki could be aiming him at ANYBODY. He could be setting up an assassination attempt for Odin or Freya or anybody! But no, he just trusts it's his indestructible brother Loki is gonna let him shoot.

But Loki was, in fact, aiming Hodur towards Baldur. But this redeeming moment is kind of spoiled by the fact that the arrow had a sprig of mistletoe tied to the end.

So Hodur pulls back the string, Loki gently prods his arm in the direction of Baldur instead of at the wall, and Hodur lets 'er rip.

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Of course, the gods are shocked into stunned silence when all of a sudden, Baldur falls to the floor with an arrow in his chest. Frigga and Nanna (the aforementioned wife of Baldur; I'm not sure what she is the goddess of, as it varies from source to source. Let's just say muffins, for the story's sake. She's the goddess of muffins and the letter W.) finally look up from their nail-painting, Asgardian Idol gossiping session and see the commotion.

So of course everyone angrily looks around to see who fired the arrow, hefting their remaining weapons and ready for vengeance. And what do they see?

Hodur standing there with an empty bow pointing off in the wrong direction, blissfully unaware, saying to the empty air, "Did I hit him? Dude, did I hit him?"

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So after they've taken Baldur to wherever they take their dead (because he was dead, have no doubts about that), took poor Hodur away for some tricky explanations, and made sure Nanna wasn't about to jump off the palace roof in despair, they formulated a plan.

They know, from the mysterious absence of the god of Chaos that he is the culprit (that and the fact that Loki causes most of the trouble in the Nine Realms...not to mention the weekly hate mail filled with poison gas and razor blades that appears for Baldur from an "anonymous" source.)

So they, for some reason, go to Daddy's Little Girl for help.

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Now, as any Norse mythology fan worth their salt knows, Odin treated Loki's kids like crap. They sentenced his daughter Hel to preside over the Realm of the Dead. Not that bad a deal considering what happened to her brothers, but think of it as being grounded for eternity. By someone who isn't even your parents. When you have done nothing wrong. So why they went to her for help, I will never fathom.

So they send a messenger to Helheim to talk to the goddess. And this is what she says:

"No."

"But my lady-"

"I said no. You can't have him back."

"Why not?"

"It takes a lot of little people to get the work done around here."

"Is there _any_ way you'll let him go?"  
"Hm. Okay, how about this: If you can get every creature to cry for Baldur, you can have him back. Capisce?"

"I don't know what that means, but...yes, capisce."

So the messenger goes back to Asgard and tells the rest of the gods. And so...Frigga goes out to get everything to cry for her son. And in Helheim, Loki just gave Hel a raise on her allowance.

* * *

So Frigga, much like when Baldur was born, goes out on a world mission. So she gets the people to cry for him, the rabbits to cry for him, the freaking ROSES to cry for him. The gods cry for him... And then she hits a roadblock. (By the way, wouldn't that be kinda weird? Getting mistletoe, for all intents and purposes the CAUSE of your son's death, to lament for it? Weird...)

Frigga comes upon this old lady who just REFUSES to shed a tear. (In some myths it is heavily implied or in some cases outright stated that the woman is Loki in disguise. For the purposes of my story-and the fact that Loki would totally do this- the woman is Loki.)

"What has Baldur ever done for me?" the old woman/Loki says.

Frigga scrambles for a response.

"Um...he gives off a heavenly aura of peace and harmony?"

"Pfft. Big deal."

"He makes good cupcakes?"

"Diabetic."

"He's my son and I love him?"

"Well, isn't that a shame."

"Um….I'm the goddess of marriage and fertility!"

"That helps me _how?"_

And after several hours of arguing and pleading and cursing and swearing and threatening, Frigga is forced to give up.

* * *

So she returns to Asgard and they have Baldur's funeral.

Now, in Viking times, funerals were held by putting the person on a boat, setting it on fire, and sending it off to sea. (At least, the important people were. I don't know about the common folk...but whatever.) And so they put Baldur on this big awesome ship that he probably wouldn't have appreciated had he been alive ("It's not _pretty_ or _harmonious_ enough or whatever. God, I bash Baldur so much, wow.) and set it on fire.

And his crazy-ass wife jumps onto the fire with him. In different forms of the myth Nanna alternatively dies of grief and they burn her with him or she commits gruesome suicide by jumping on the pyre with him. As you can see, I went with the gruesome suicide route. Just seems more Viking-y. Here's how I think it went:

Nanna is crying into a handkerchief, or, rather, a tablecloth, because none of the Norse deities but Baldur (including Freya) was feminine enough to own a HANDKERCHIEF. And they burned Baldur with his.

Frigga puts her arm around her shoulders, "Nanna, it will be all right! It'll take some time, you'll move on, see other men, life will go o-"

"BALDY! WAIT FOR ME!" Nanna unexpectedly wrenches free of Frigga, clotheslines Odin when he tries to stop her and leaps twelve feet onto the burning ship.

Everyone just stand there in stunned silence as the ship sails off over the horizon.

Then:

"Well, that's that. _Idol_ 's on, everyone. Let's go."

* * *

"But _DAAAAAAAAD…"_

"No. We agreed when we hatched the scheme that I would _double_ your allowance, _not_ triple it."

"Dad-"

"Hel."

" _Daaaaad-"_

" _Heeeeel-"_

* * *

 _A/N: That ending sucked. Wow. I need to fix that._

 _Anyway, thanks for reading. Please review. I beg of you. *big pleading eyes*_

 _Also, I don't have a beta, so if you see any mistakes, feel free to point them out in a polite manner. Keyword being "polite."_

 _Also, since I figured out how to put in my line breaks, I've fallen a little in love with them, so there may be too many. Sorry, not sorry._


End file.
